06-06-2012, 12:41 AM | #1 |
languorous autodidact ✦
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Short Stories Nominations June 2012 • The MR Literary Club
Help us select what the MR Literary Club will read for June 2012!
The nominations will run through June 11 or until five works have made the list. Final voting in a new poll will begin by June 11, where the month's selection will be decided. The category for this month is: Short Stories In order for a work to be included in the poll it needs FOUR nominations - the original nomination plus three supporting. Each participant has FOUR nominations to use. You can nominate a new work for consideration or you can support (second, third or fourth) a work that has already been nominated by another person. To nominate a work just post a message with your nomination. If you are the first to nominate a work, it's always nice to provide an abstract to the work so others may consider their level of interest. What is literature for the purposes of this club? A superior work of lasting merit that enriches the mind. Often it is important, challenging, critically acclaimed. It may be from ancient times to today; it may be from anywhere in the world; it may be obscure or famous, short or long; it may be a story, a novel, a play, a poem, an essay or another written form. If you are unsure if a work would be considered literature, just ask! The floor is now open! * Nominations are closed. Final nominations: The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories by Franz Kafka - Fully nominated Spoiler:
My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway - Fully nominated Spoiler:
Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany - Fully nominated Spoiler:
The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor - Fully nominated Spoiler:
Selected Stories of O. Henry - Fully nominated Spoiler:
The short stories of M. R. James - 3 Spoiler:
Last edited by sun surfer; 06-07-2012 at 07:33 PM. |
06-06-2012, 12:50 AM | #2 |
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My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway
I started The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway in 2002, and I was so moved by My Old Man that I stopped dead in my tracks and haven't picked up the book since. All of Hemingway's works are in the public domain in Canada, but I haven't found this one for free at Inkmesh. Perhaps if it wins someone will post it at the Patricia Clark MR Library. |
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06-06-2012, 07:55 AM | #3 | |
o saeclum infacetum
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I'd like to nominate The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, winner of the National Book award in 1972. Here's the intro to her Wikipedia entry; I'll find something more illuminating later.
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06-06-2012, 09:16 AM | #4 | |
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I'd like to nominate Selected Stories of O. Henry (Barnes & Noble Classics Series).
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06-06-2012, 09:21 AM | #5 |
Nameless Being
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I nominate The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories, a collection of almost all short to medium length works by Franz Kafka. This is perhaps my all time favorite work of fiction and is available as an ebook from a number of sources. Inkmesh search.
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06-06-2012, 10:07 AM | #6 |
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I nominate the short stories of M.R.James. He was a great--perhaps the greatest--master of the macabre. His stories have been described in a review from The New Yorker as follows:
"If M. R. James is remembered now, and honored beyond the bounds of his university, it is not because of his scholarly deeds but precisely because of his talent for applying the very highest calibre of jolt. All of his stories have now been freshly gathered in “Collected Ghost Stories” (Oxford), edited by Darryl Jones. We also get a compendium of James’s reflections on the art that he practiced. Our response to ghost stories, Virginia Woolf argued, “is a refined and spiritualized essence of fear.” Most of James’s heroes are like James. Dons, obsessive bibliophiles, and bachelors. James summons unholy terror from the very texts and objects that concern him. Not for him the mad gothic landscape. The stories were written, so to speak, in front of a mirror, by a man hoping to drown the tiny, shivering thrills of the chronic bookworm with the low snarl of a more universal emotion, that of dread. Despite the titles of James’s books, only rarely does he deal in the mere emanation. What he fears most is surface contact. What truly provoked him, and what filtered into his stories, was not so much misogyny as a more basic, mortal panic at gazing into the face of the unknown. . . . A.E. Housman used poetry to touch on loves that he had lost or never dared to enact; M. R. James used ghost stories to explore fears of which he could not otherwise speak." I would agree with that assessment but would add that I am reminded very much of the inner psychological horror of Sheridan Le Fanu--but without the Gothic context of the Irish writer. A complete collection of these very literate and very scary stories is available for free right here at MobileRead! https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ebo...sc&forumid=128 It's the second item on the list. Last edited by fantasyfan; 06-06-2012 at 03:30 PM. |
06-06-2012, 10:09 AM | #7 |
Wizard
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I second Selected Stories of O. Henry and also The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
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06-06-2012, 10:36 AM | #8 |
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I'll second Hemingway and Kafka and third O. Henry.
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06-06-2012, 10:56 AM | #9 |
o saeclum infacetum
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I'll second James and third Kafka.
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06-06-2012, 11:58 AM | #10 |
languorous autodidact ✦
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I'll third Hemingway and fourth Kafka.
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06-06-2012, 04:54 PM | #11 |
Nameless Being
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I would like to fourth My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway and third The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor .
Using my final nomination I will offer Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany ). To me this collection shows Dunsany to be a master of the short story from pure fantasy to commentary on the human spirit and society. This collection is available in nice versions (LRF, PRC, IMP) here at MR, and being in the public domain for free at the other expected sources. This link (to one of the LRF versions at MR) provides more information as well as and example of one of his very short pieces. |
06-06-2012, 05:16 PM | #12 |
o saeclum infacetum
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I'll second Dunsany with my last nomination.
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06-06-2012, 05:57 PM | #13 |
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I'll use my last nomination to third Dunsany.
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06-06-2012, 07:30 PM | #14 |
Montreal wins Grey Cup!
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I'm not familiar with Dunsany, but I will be happy to fourth him.
***** I see that everyone else has nominated a collection of short stories, while I nominated a single one. Should I have nominated The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway instead? http://inkmesh.com/ebooks/complete-s...nest+Hemingway This is my first participation with this club, and I will be happy to go along with the program. Last edited by GA Russell; 06-06-2012 at 07:32 PM. |
06-06-2012, 08:25 PM | #15 | |
languorous autodidact ✦
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This is actually our first month with this category (it's the last of our first yearly cycle that started last July). But we've had a variety of types of nominations in other categories too. |
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